In a normal tape cassette, tape drive combination, a motor is connected to each tape reel carried by the cassette to drive the reels. In high speed tape cassettes, a high speed tape search can occur at 500 ips (inches per second) to 1000 ips with acceleration and deceleration rates of 1000 ips to 2000 ips. These kinds of search speeds, acceleration, deceleration rates and sudden reverse and forward movements cause tremendous wear and tear on the motor bearings causing eventual failure of the bearings necessitating replacement of the motor or rebuilding the motor about every 10 million passes over a tape guide. This becomes a very expensive proposition. Also, due to the wear and tear, the reliability of the drive increasingly decreases as the number of cycles increase. Reliability of the drive is very important at the above speeds of search, acceleration and deceleration.
A solution to this problem is to make the motor bearings a consumable item by rotatably mounting the tape reels by bearings onto the tape cassette and utilize those bearings as either the sole or primary bearings for the rotor of a motor when the motor is connected to the tape reel to drive the reel. This way, the reliability of the tape drive is increased. The cassette is designed to last in excess of 300,000 passes over a tape guide. Therefore, each time a cassette is disposed of and replaced by a new cassette, the drive system will have new bearings. In the long run, the cost of the cumulative consumable cassette bearings compared to the equivalent life of a motor bearing will be less than replacing the motor.